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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849050">The Pumpkin Klutz</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader'>remreader</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dum-E Should Not Be Allowed Near Knives, Fluff and Humor, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark at MIT, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, MIT Era, Pumpkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:26:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Rhodey (and Dum-E) attempt pumpkin carving; mild chaos ensues.</p>
<p>written for Marvel Spookytober Prompts 2020, October 5th: "Did you seriously injure yourself carving a pumpkin?" and for my IronHusbands Bingo square B2 - mistakes (card 2011)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Ironhusbands Bingo 2020, Marvel Spookytober Prompts 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Pumpkin Klutz</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I can't believe you actually managed to injure yourself <em> carving a pumpkin</em>." Rhodey shook his head in disbelief as he stepped gingerly around piles of stringy pumpkin guts and seeds scattered across the workshop floor to retrieve the first aid kit mounted on the back wall. "That's impressive even for you, Tones."</p>
<p>Tony scowled and kicked his feet against the leg of the lab table he was perched on. "First of all, I technically didn't injure <em>myself</em>. Dum-E is an autonomous entity and-"</p>
<p>"Yeah. That <em> you </em> gave a <em> knife </em> to." The afternoon's (slightly unconventional, but that was friendship with Tony Stark for you) pumpkin carving session had actually been going pretty well at first. Until the actual carving part. Rhodey had barely started drawing out the face on his pumpkin in Sharpie when the sounds of a pumpkin crunching into pieces, Tony yelping in pain, and Dum-E’s concerned beeping had all occurred in quick succession. Tony, for all his supposed genius, had clearly not seen the potential danger in holding a pumpkin steady in his lap for his disaster bot to jab at <em> with a knife</em>.</p>
<p>“You should talk,” Tony grumbled, pouting. “This whole thing was your idea…”</p>
<p>“<em>Pumpkin carving </em> was my idea.” Rhodey corrected. “You know, the thing normal people who <em> aren’t </em>mad scientists-in-training do to celebrate Halloween? Not starting the freaking robot revolution!”</p>
<p>“It was an accident!” Tony insisted. “Anyway, we couldn’t just leave Dum-E out. This was a perfect fine motor skills learning opportunity for him.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.” Rhodey sidled back over to Tony with the first aid kit and examined the younger boy’s hand. Luckily the cut seemed pretty shallow - traveling through two layers of pumpkin rind before landing in Tony’s palm had significantly blunted the knife’s force of impact - but it would still need to be cleaned and taped up. “That’s why you’re bleeding now, right?”</p>
<p>“Occupational hazard-ow!” Tony winced at the sting as Rhodey swabbed the gash with an alcohol pad. “Must not’ve calibrated his sensors right, that’s all...just have to make a few adjustments-” He tried to reach across the table, presumably to grab his notebook and start jotting down some new calculations and corrections to Dum-E’s code.</p>
<p>“Hang on, let me finish!” Rhodey finished cleaning the wound, then wrapped a strip of gauze around Tony’s hand a few times and sealed it in place with some medical tape. “There.”</p>
<p>Tony flexed his fingers experimentally and inspected his friend’s handiwork with interest. “You know,” he mused, already completely distracted from the stabby bot problem, “we could totally use this.”</p>
<p>“For what?”</p>
<p>“Halloween!” Tony crowed, waving his bandaged hand at Rhodey like it was obvious. “I can be a zombie.” He hopped off the table and started humming the first few bars of <em> Thriller</em>, then spun around, attempted to moonwalk across the room, and almost immediately slipped in a pile of pumpkin goo, falling on his ass and narrowly avoiding cracking his head open against the wall. “Ouch.”</p>
<p>Rhodey pulled Tony back to his feet with a grunt. “A mummy would be better,” he quipped. “Get all that bandaging out of the way in advance. Might save some time.”</p>
<p>“Ha. Ha.” Tony made a show of dusting off his jeans, then looked at Rhodey. “Thanks,” he said, a more serious note in his voice now. “For taking care of me.”</p>
<p>“Always.” Rhodey replied without hesitation. He gave Tony a companionable nudge with his shoulder. “Maybe try to be <em> slightly </em> less of a reckless idiot?”</p>
<p>Tony grinned. “No promises.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this bit of Halloween fun :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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